Hannibal's untold story (Hannibal X Grace)

(12) survival of the fittest

I slurped on my tea in the office. It wasn't fancy in any way, just some basic tea you get from the cafeteria. I checked the time out of boredom, it read 12:40PM. That explained why my stomach gurgled. I decided to call Finn because I didn't tell him what happened yesterday. I held the phone to my ear and heard the ring tone.
"Hello?"
"Hi Finn!"
"Grace? What happened! Maria is looking for you!"
"I'm okay, I needed to be away from Maria"
"Why? Did she hurt you?"
"I'm a legal adult, I don't need her anymore. I should've done this a long time ago."
"You've ran away? Where are you staying?"
"Not too sure. I think Hannibal's place? Not official though."
"Okay well my door is always open for you"
"Thank you, means a lot."
"Also Grace, have you heard?"
"Heard what?
"There's another girl gone missing! She was found dead in her bed, but was abducted, murdered and brought back!"
"I know, I'm investigating it"
"...what?"
"Hannibal also works for the FBI! I can help this case!"
"Hannibal is your psychiatrist! This is getting weird now Grace. You should see someone else"
"No, no. He's helping me!"
"Is he? Your not mentally well and your helping in an FBI case"
"Thanks for your support, Finn"
"I'm supporting this FBI thing, not your Hannibal thing!"
"Well I'm getting better!"
"Okayyy..."
Hannibal let himself into the office, holding something in his hand.

"I need to go, bye!" I ended the call quickly and brought all my attention on Hannibal.

"I bought you a salad. This has all the nutrients the human body needs." Hannibal said. He held out the food to me with a fork.

"Thank you" I took the food from his hands and began eating. I would rate the food 2/10 but I ate it to not seem rude. I think Hannibal caught on to the disgust on my face.

"It won't taste nice but it's sincerely good for your health" exclaimed Hannibal, who was sipping on his water. The awkwardness filled the room. Has he just totally ignored what happened yesterday?

"Are we gonna just pretend it didn't happen?" I put down the salad on my lap in slight anger.

"Pretend what didn't happen?" He responded. I couldn't tell if he was being serious or not.

"Pretend that we didn't kiss, oh let me rephrase that. Pretend we didn't make out!" I lowered my voice in case someone heard, like Will. Hannibal looked down into his water and placed it on the table beside him and sat next to me.

"Well, what do you want to do about it?" He asked. I placed the salad on the floor so I could listen to him.

"That kiss was the best kiss in my life and you just-"
Before I could go on with my rant, he interrupted.

"Better than Marcus' kisses?" He smirked at how I phrased it.

"Really? Why do you care so much? I can't exactly remember anyway" I slapped myself in the face for saying that. Instead of him talking about the kiss, he shuffled next to me and kissed me. It was just as awesome as last time. I closed my eyes and listened to him breathing. He placed his hand on my thighs and explored my body. I pulled away, remembering what he said yesterday.

"Inappropriate relationship." I simply said and picked my salad back up.

"Well, we could break our patient doctor relationship. In that case, we could act on our romantic desires." He didn't shuffle away from me, instead he liked the idea of us to kiss again. I took a mouthful of the salad and made a disgusted face to the flavours in my mouth.

"I need your help though" at this point, I think I was stress eating.

"I can still help you. We could have appointments as normal but I wouldn't be your legal psychiatrist." Hannibal put his hand on my thigh, sometimes squeezing it. It felt good, sometimes making me slip on my words. I looked at him, I was about to say my answer but Will swung open the office door. Hannibal moved his hand away and he went to pick up his water slowly, and took a small sip and then looked at Will.

"We're going to analyse her body with Beatrice." He simply said, one hand in his pocket while saying it.

"Okay, sure" I said, going to throw the salad away. It was pretty satisfying to close the bin lid on it. Hannibal simply finished his cup of water and waited at the door for me. I walked out the office and Hannibal closed the door. Will looked at me and started a conversation, with Hannibal behind us.

"Ever analysed a body?" He asked. This time, he was looking at me. Not anywhere else, which is what he normally did.

"Seen films on it.. and I did okay in biology" I spoke truthfully. Organs and such don't startle me that much. However, I didn't talk about what I've witnessed. Will didn't have much time to ask anything else, since we arrived to the body. Beatrice was already there all geared up and the body was already laid out on the slab. They had tissue covering her genitalia and they had a table full of sharp objects.

"Hey guys, how you feeling Grace?" Asked Beatrice who was putting on surgical gloves.

"Doing good, why?" I seemed to have forgot that I had a serious zone out a few hours ago.

"Just, I sorta had to leave in a hurry and you seemed like you had an attack of some sort" Hannibal placed his brief case and coat on a chair and he brushed at his suit. He has seemed to of done this before. Jack opened up the doors and he was already splitting out words.

"So, what're we looking for?" He asked, while walking over to the surgical glove box.

"Why she was brought back home" exclaimed Beatrice.

"there's something wrong with her meat.." said Will. I looked at him, his arms was crossed and already had his theories.

"A cannibal" said Hannibal.

"So, a father who's a cannibal" I say. Nobody else had anything to say, so Beatrice got a scalpel and cut open her stomach. Me and Will went to get a closer look. Me and Will faced each other and we accidentally made eye contact.

"Weird, her organs don't look right" said Beatrice. That was the queue for Jack and Hannibal to come look too. Hannibal stood by me and Jack stood by Will.

"He was going to eat her, so it would be a 'mercy kill' but something stopped him" I said, in putting my theory.

"She has cancer" said Will. Hannibal tried to sniff quietly but I caught on.

"I believe he's correct" Hannibal said. Beatrice pulled out the organ that looks most out of place for a closer look.

"You two are right, she did"